


홍어회 (Or: The Art of Pinching Your Nose and Swallowing Ethanol)

by revision, rumioki



Series: Missing the Void and Other Perpetual Disappointments [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:14:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28628619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revision/pseuds/revision, https://archiveofourown.org/users/rumioki/pseuds/rumioki
Summary: A delicacy that grows on you kind of like mold on week old bodega bread.
Relationships: Original Female Character & Original Male Character
Series: Missing the Void and Other Perpetual Disappointments [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2097927
Comments: 15
Kudos: 3





	1. 17:10

**Author's Note:**

> Context for all of this coming in [checks watch] fifteen years.

He’s at that age where literally everything else takes precedence over his snot-nosed little sister when she kicks him in the shin to get his attention while he’s aggressively spray painting a ninth layer of meth blue on his diorama in the backyard. It takes every ounce of self control he has to not turn around and threaten to spray it in her face.

She’s ten.

He’s seventeen.

Unfortunately, that means he has to be the mature one.

“What do you want?”

“What’re you doing?”

“Go away, I’m busy.” Daniel turns halfway to face her to tell her to scram—to go back inside and finish her homework that he knows she’s not going to do until their mom comes home and sits her down and makes her finish, lecturing her the whole while. 

“Your poster’s all soggy.”

Daniel fights back a groan and the urge to chuck the can of spray paint through papier-mâché, “What do you _want_ , Arri?”

She delicately wrinkles her nose at his tone, like all of a sudden she grew standards and wasn’t sporting permanent bruises from whatever the hell she got up to at school.

“Teach me how to kickbox,” Arri demands, with all the authority a scrappy little kid can manage, “I know you go to lessons.”

Well, that’s new.

“Since when do you know I kickbox?”

Arri rolls her eyes and crosses her arms, and _that’s_ a more familiar look on her, “Mom told me to ask you, ‘cause she doesn’t want to pay for lessons because my grades are,” she quotes, “Abysmal.”

“She’s not wrong.”

“She said I can either bring up my grades and then she’ll _maybe_ let me sign up for tae-kwon-do, or I can ask you to teach me whatever,” she pauses, “I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m gonna study, but I’d rather ask you, even if you’re garbage at it.”

“I’m _not_ garbage at it, shithead.”

He probably shouldn’t be calling a fifth grader a shithead, but she’s been saying ‘fuck’ since she was seven, so it’s not like there’s any lost innocence there.

“So teach me.”

“Are you going to ask me politely?”

“I won’t kick you in the balls if you teach me.”

Daniel cackles and sets down the can in a patch of grass that’s vibrantly blue, “Why do you want to learn how to kickbox in the first place?” He asks, “You get enough detention for beating the shit out of the kids in your grade and _biting_ them—what, are you trying to beat them up _efficiently_?”

“ _No_ ,” Arri draws out the word with an annoyed huff, “I just think it’s—” she ducks her head and mumbles, “Cool.”

“What was that?” Daniel asks, a slow smile cracking his face in two, “I couldn’t hear you—did you say something _I’m_ good at is cool?”

“You’re such a fucking asshole,” Arri spits, bristling and looking remarkably like a disgruntled, soaking rat, “I take it back, it’s not cool anymore.”

“No, no,” Daniel says, gleefully, “No take-backs. I’ll teach you, since you think it’s so _cool_.”

Arri’s face is still scrunched up in annoyance, but he can see her struggling to maintain it, the corners of her mouth ticking up the slightest bit, “Really?”

“On two conditions.”

“What?” She looks like someone’s burning biohazards under her nose.

“One—you mow over all the blue shit here before mom sees it and yells at us,” He says, grinning at Arri’s disgruntled: “ _Us?_ ”

“And two,” he continues, “When you end up roundhouse kicking a dipshit’s head and giving him a concussion, _I_ wasn’t the one that taught you that shit, ok?”

Arri’s face goes through a complicated series of motions as she mulls over the terms before she settles on a shit-eating grin and sticks her hand out, “Deal.”

Daniel doesn’t shake her hand more as he smears blue paint on her palm, making her snort out a disgusted noise.

“You should just spray paint the grass green,” she says, wiping her hand on her dirt-stained jeans, “It’s not like mom’ll notice.”

Daniel blinks.

“Now that’s an idea.”


	2. 20:12

“Where’s your prep books?”

“Huh?”

“Where. Are. Your. Prep. Books?” A girl slowly enunciates over the phone, like he’s a particular brand of stupid, “Did you throw them out?”

Daniel pulls his phone away from his ear to check the caller ID, frowns at the screen, then holds his phone back up.

“Arri?”

“Who the fuck else?” Arri says, impatiently, “If you threw them out, do you remember what they were so I can go to Barnes and Noble or something?”

“I—” Daniel stutters, “ _Huh?_ ”

“ _오빠_ ,” she stresses, “Are you high? Is it drugs you’re doing? I’m gonna tell dad you went to college and started doing drugs like all the white kids.”

“What are you _talking_ about?” Daniel asks, “Why are you asking me about my old prep books? Just go to the supermarket and get some coal if you wanna burn something.”

“I’m not gonna burn the books—I just don’t want to spend money on new shit if you still have your old prep books.”

She pauses,

“And I know you have them somewhere cause you’re a giant hoarder.”

“Uh, yeah,” Daniel says, faintly, “They should be in the box labeled notes all the way in the back of my closet,” he checks the caller ID again for good measure, “It’s cardboard,” he says, feeling entirely unhelpful.

“Alright, thanks 오빠. I’m gonna call you with more questions later.” Arri hangs up with that promise that sounds more like a threat.

Daniel just blinks down at his phone, wondering if it’ll unfurl into a xenomorph in his hand and try to turn his face into paste. It’d explain a lot, that’s for sure.

“Who was that?” His roommate asks him from across the room, “You look like someone shot your dog or something.”

“My sister.”

“Is everything ok?”

“I uh,” Daniel swallows, “I genuinely think that I might’ve slipped into a parallel dimension.”

“ _Huh?_ ”

“Yeah. Same.”


	3. 23:15

“Oh fuck, hide, _hide_ ,” Daniel hears being hissed from the kitchen as he throws open the front door.

“I thought you said no one was going to be home!” A different voice snaps, equally hushed, “Ars, I’m _literally_ —”

“I _know_ ,” Arri says, “We’ll deal with that later, just hide, Jesus fuck.”

Daniel walks into the cabinet door under the kitchen swinging closed and blood staining the tiled floor.

“Arri?” He asks and his little sister whips around guiltily, a broad smile plastered on her face.

“Hey!” She chirps, voice forcibly bright—nothing to see here officer, no sir— “I thought you were at work until six.”

“Yeah, I was,” Daniel says, “But there was a fire alarm and they just let us off early. Arri, what the _fuck_ is going on here?” He gestures slightly manically to the dark smears, “And who’s in there?”

“In where?” Arri tries to stare at him, all wide-eyed innocence, but he’s seen that expression angled at their mom while she hid something behind her back since she was five, and he just levels her with a narrowed glare.

Arri deflates and brings her hands up, “We didn’t do anything,” she says, preemptively, “Honest—it was an accident.”

She knocks on the cabinet door and it slowly creaks open, revealing a gangly-limbed boy folded into the small space, awkwardly jammed among the cleaning supplies.

“Hi Daniel,” he says with a small wave, “Long time no see.”

“Hey Jason,” Daniel sighs, closing his eyes and rubbing his temple. He should have guessed.

A long, pregnant silence falls over them, before Daniel finally says, “You feel like getting out of there anytime soon?”

“Oh, right,” Jason says and scrabbles inelegantly out, knocking over several bottles of bleach, “Sorry.”

He now knows where all the blood on the floor is from—the boy’s pants and shirt are soaked through enough to be dripping with it, and he wishes he could say that it was the first time he’d come across either of them looking like that.

The first time, their neighbor had nearly called the police because they thought someone had broken into their house and was murdering _Arri_ , when it was actually him, at eighteen, seeing his little sister covered in enough blood that her hair was plastered to her face.

He’s not nearly as panicked now, but it’s still not the best sight to come home to.

“Are either of you hurt?” Daniel asks, and he’s met with identical wide-eyed stares and quick shakes of their head.

“Do I want to know where all this is from?”

“We were uh—” Arri glances desperately over at Jason.

“It’s fake blood?” Jason says, but it’s hard to argue against the coppery tang that fake blood most definitely doesn’t have and is wafting off of him in waves.

“Did either of you kill someone?”

More wide-eyed stares and frantic head shakes.

“Did you _severely_ injure someone?”

More of the same.

“So, what happened?”

They share an inscrutable look and start talking over each other, and Daniel knows that not a single word coming out of their mouths is true.

“Mom asked me to go buy oxblood for dinner—”

“And she asked me to come with her—”

“We were almost home when I tripped and—”

“Obviously it got all over me and we didn’t know what to do so—”

“We were gonna try to wash it off or else Jason’s Nana would _murder_ him, but then—”

Daniel cuts Arri off with a wave of his hand and both their jaws audibly click shut. He’d be impressed with how seamless they are at bullshitting on top of each other, but he can feel the beginnings of a tension headache rubber banding around his skull and as long as neither of them are actually hurt—and with how enthusiastically they’re chiming in, they _clearly_ aren’t—he finds that he doesn’t really care.

“Nevermind, I don’t want to know,” Daniel says with a grimace, “Jason, I’ll give you something to borrow for now—go soak your clothes in the tub in _cold_ water,” he waves towards the smears, “I’ll help you guys clean the rest of this up before mom gets home.”

Jason strips off his socks and scurries off when Arri gives him a small nod, and Daniel crouches down with a stiff groan and starts pulling out the floor cleaner that’s now also spotted with red. Arri squats down next to him, silent for the first time in her life as he hands her a fresh rag and gestures towards the sink to wet.

They work in silence, only interrupted by the distant roar of the tub in the downstairs bathroom filling with water.

After a long moment, Arri asks in a small voice, “Are you gonna tell mom?”

Daniel sighs and wrings out the rag, the water still stained a pink tint, “You don’t want me to?”

Arri shakes her head, staunchly glaring at the stubborn spot she’s been scrubbing, refusing to look at him. And yeah, he probably _should_ tell their mom about this, but from what he can make of her profile, her chin’s wobbling and her face is all screwed up, and he’s never seen her look so close to actually crying before.

Sure, she’s gotten out of trouble countless times with big, watery eyes and crocodile tears that melted into an unrepentant grin the second her targeted adult turned their backs but this time, she’s actually turning red against letting her tears fall.

And, well—that’s his little sister.

“It’ll only make her flip out if I do,” Daniel says with a shrug and Arri’s head snaps up so quick he’s surprised she doesn’t give herself whiplash, “As long as you didn't actually hurt anyone or yourselves, I don’t see a point.”

Her face crumples and Daniel drops the filthy rag in his hands and hovers over her, frantically uncertain as her breathing starts to hitch and her tears finally well over and spill down her cheeks, a wet gurgle that’s halfway between a whine and a snort burbling at the back of her throat.

“Oh my _god_ are you ok? Wait, are you actually hurt—do I need to call 911? Jesus, Arri—”

“ _No_ ,” Arri hiccups, then wails, “ _오빠._ ”

And then Daniel gets it. He really didn't know how terrified Arri was that he’d rat them out without a second thought, but he gets the sudden sobbing of sheer relief.

He only just barely opens his arms out in invitation when he’s bowled over by a barely four foot something teen launching herself at him, making him land hard on his ass on clean but slick tile.

Daniel pats her back until her sniffles subside and then he finally says, “Your face is all gross.”

Arri huffs out a weak laugh and smears her face against his shoulder, wiping her tears and snot on his shirt.

“ _Gross_.”

But he doesn’t push her away.


	4. 26:17

High school graduation is just as boring as Daniel remembers it being, if not more so because he doesn’t have his friends sitting next to him passing notes, doodling dicks on the programme, and making comments under their breaths during the commencement speeches. Instead, he’s sandwiched between two parents that look just about as bored as he feels, eyes glazed over and thousand-yard stare going—the full works.

But even though he wants to tear out his eyes because the commencement speaker has been talking for _thirty minutes_ , he wouldn’t have missed this graduation for the world. Partly because the fact that he’s sitting in that auditorium feels like a miracle in of itself, and mostly because he’s so stuffed with pride that it feels like he’ll bust at the seams. So even though he wants to die, just a little at the outdated memes the man on stage keeps quoting, it’s altogether not that bad.

He’s starting to very much regret not bringing at least a book or something when finally, _finally ,_ the graduates begin their walk. There’s a mad shuffle on either side of him as the other parents dig around to get cameras at the ready as the A’s cross the stage and he sits up in over-eager anticipation. It dawns on him what a stupid decision that was as he sinks back into his seat halfway through the Cs and there’s about a million K’s before the first name called in the L’s is the only one that matters.

“Arri Lang.”

Daniel channels his best friend who’s been to about five different K-pop concerts and is a well-seasoned veteran in being heard over thousands of other screaming fans and waves the light stick she let him borrow above his head like mad. Immediately, he’s met with alarmed and affronted stares from everyone around him within a ten-foot radius, but he’s too old to be embarrassed by jack shit anymore, and he can see that Arri _definitely_ found him in the crowd from the stage and is waving— 

No, she’s flipping him off.

Ok, maybe he should have given the people immediately around him ear plugs or something, but he doubts they’ll have any permanent damage done to their ears. Maybe some mild, _temporary_ tinnitus at worst.

He finishes screaming his head off as she walks off stage and settles back for another two hours of teeth-aching loads of nothing.

It’s nigh-on impossible to find Arri in the rush to leave after the ceremony comes to a close, and it’s equally impossible to find her outside because she’s half the size of anyone else there. But thankfully, she has behemoths for friends, and it’s not that hard to find the three huddled together near the entranceway, waiting for their own family.

“Oh my god dude, do you have no pride?” Arri asks immediately when she spots him approaching them, “I think people might’ve heard you in _Russia_.”

Daniel grins unrepentantly at her as he holds out a bouquet and the ugliest stuffed bear he could find, “It’s my civic duty and pleasure to embarrass you to death,” he says, as she takes the offered items, “Congrats, you little shit.”

She grins as she holds up the bear. It has a head that’s about five sizes too small for its body and a face that only a mother could love, “This is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Yeah, it looks just like you.”

Arri cackles and smacks him in the arm with it, “Obviously it’s _you_ —look at the size of its head. It’s the same size as your brain.”

“Hey, we’re gonna head out,” Jason interrupts, gesturing over to his Nana, who’s positively glowing at him and yeah, Daniel gets the sentiment, “See ya tomorrow?”

“See ya,” Arri agrees, waving as Kingsley and Sasha also head off to find their family.

“What, are you guys not going to hang out to celebrate today?” Daniel asks with a small frown.

“Nah,” Arri says, “We’re gonna meet up tomorrow—Kingsley wants to celebrate with his family and Jason’s Nana made him his favorite at home,” she wrinkles her nose, “And Sasha’s dad’s throwing some big fancy function she doesn’t want to go to.”

“Sucks,” Daniel says, as they move out of the way of foyer to head down the street.

“Mom?” Arri asks, not looking at him.

“She couldn’t get the hours off,” Daniel says with a wince, “And dad—”

“Couldn’t get plane tickets in time,” Arri finishes matter-of-factly. She doesn’t sound disappointed in the slightest and he feels a rush of anger towards their parents. He doesn’t know if Arri remembers it, but they’d managed it when _he_ graduated, so he doesn’t know why they can’t just pull through like they should now. He hopes she doesn’t, though.

“You should have just gone to work too,” Arri says, wrapping her arms around the stupid bear and squeezing, “It’s just high school.”

“Fuck that,” Daniel says, “I wanted to come—I would have fought my boss if she didn’t say I was clear to take time off.” 

Arri grins at that and looks away, “Your boss must love you.”

“Oh, for sure,” Daniel says, “Now come on—I’ll buy you anything you want to eat for dinner today. Where do you want to go?”

She narrows her eyes at him, “That’s a dangerous proposition,” she says, “Anything?”

“Anything.”

Her grin turns sharp and pointed, “Even sushi?”

Daniel mimics gagging, but nods, “Even sushi.”

“I should graduate more often.”

“I’ll offer again in four years,” Daniel laughs.


	5. 29:20

“Can I list you as my next of kin?”

“Huh?” Daniel stares muzzily at the ceiling, wondering why it was so goddamn dark when apparently it was time for him to be awake. He turns over to his digital clock and squints until the numbers come into focus and they glow 4:53 AM at him.

“Arri,” he groans and rolls over to bury his face in his pillow, “What the fuck—what the _fuck_ , it’s almost _five_ in the morning.”

She cackles down the line, “Isn’t it almost time for old ass people to get up anyways?”

“ _No_ ,” Daniel groans, “Who the fuck’s awake at five AM? Why are _you_ awake at five?”

There’s a silence over the phone. That properly wakes Daniel up and he sits up in bed, frowning at the wall across his room.

“Arri,” a hum of assent came across the line, “Have you been arrested? Is this your one phone call—are you calling me at five in the morning cause you’re in the drunk tank?”

“No!” Arri says, “What do you take me for? Would I call you because I got arrested—don’t answer that.”

Daniel laughs and flops back in bed, “Then what do you want Arri, I have work in the morning.”

“I just wanted to ask if I can add you as my emergency contact.”

“Wait why?” Daniel asks, “Isn’t mom already your emergency contact?”

“Yeah, but I want to change it.”

“ _Why_?”

“I’m not hiding anything from her if that’s what you’re asking,” Arri says, petulantly, “I just have this friend—like ok, so she’s this health nut, right?”

“Uhuh—”

“So she’s managed to drag me and Jason into mad doctors’ appointments and I don’t want the nurses or secretaries or whatever to call mom about insurance stuff and worry her.”

“Wait,” Daniel says, pinching the bridge of his nose, “Arri, don’t tell me you’re in the emergency room _right now_.”

“오빠! Christ no, some trust would be nice,” she huffs, “I just wanted to ask for your permission.”

“So you decided that five AM would be an appropriate time to call me about this,” Daniel says, debating hanging up on her and calling back when it was an appropriate human time.

“I was awake?” She says sheepishly.

“Oh my god,” Daniel groans.

“So, can I write you in as my contact?”

“I think you should keep mom—”

“ _오빠._ ”

“But I don’t think you’ll hang up unless I say yes, so yes. Fine. Whatever. But I’m still going to call mom if you end up in a stretcher somewhere,” Daniel says.

“Fair,” Arri agrees cheerily, “Ok goodnight 오빠—or rather, good morning!”

“Good morning, you little shit.”


	6. 29:20

“Daniel?”

A voice that’s _definitely_ not Arri’s comes over the line and Daniel stiffens, setting down the beer he’s been nursing on and off for the past twenty minutes while trying to decide what he wants to order in for the night because he’s forgotten that all he really had in the fridge was an egg, some soy milk, and a handful of limp vegetables.

“Who is this?” He asks, glad that his voice cooperates for once and is as sharp as he intended, “How do you have my sister’s phone?”

“It’s Sasha,” the girl explains and Daniel deflates, sinking into his couch cushions with an over-exaggerated sigh of relief.

“Hey Sasha,” Daniel says, “Why are you calling me? And on Arri’s phone?”

“There’s been an… incident,” she says, delicately, “Could you come pick us up?”

“What happened?” Daniel asks, getting up and grabbing his keys from the coffee table, “Is Arri ok?”

“No, yeah, she’s fine!” Sasha says quickly, and then pauses before she adds, “It’ll probably be easier to explain when you get here.”

“Where are you guys?”

“In front of The Black Horse—the bar between the new pizza place and Dunkin?”

“Yeah, I know where you’re talking about,” Daniel says, locking his front door and almost running to the stairwell, taking them two at a time to the apartment complex’s garage, “I’ll be there in five.” He hangs up before she can get out a proper goodbye to jump the last few steps and he’s in and peeling out of the garage in under a minute.

He gets there in four with some very gratuitous bending of traffic rules and drives up to a scene that feels like it’s straight out of a summer Blockbuster action movie, except his little sister’s playing the part of the mob’s heavy hitter while her taller, _far_ more intimidating friends plays crowd control against three fairly drunk men. They’re boggling at her, catching flies as Jason and Kingsley try to herd them back from Arri absolutely _whaling_ on a man on the ground. None of the peanut gallery seem to want to step in to pull her off the man flailing to cover his face, though they are yelling some choice obscenities at her.

Daniel forces his jaws to close with a sharp click and he finally unfreezes himself to clamber out of the car and jog up to Sasha, who’s hanging back with Arri’s phone clutched in her hands, a wild, not-quite-terrified-but-getting-there-quickly set to her eyes.

At the moment, he’s not sure if she’s scared for Arri or for the man she’s beating to a pulp, but it doesn’t matter as he wades in without sparing a single thought, yanking her by the back of her shirt and expertly dodging any flying and flailing fists coming at him before she finally recognizes him and stops. Sweat slicks down the short hairs that surround her face to her forehead and she’s wide-eyed and huffing like a bull, and he just throws up his hands in a ‘what the fuck, man?’ gesture.

Kingsley and Jason step aside from blocking the other men and they tip-toe over to drag the groaning man up and away from Arri, as if afraid that any noise or movement they make would rain down the wrath of Arri upon them as well.

Daniel spares a glance to the busted-up man and he starts when he recognizes him as his coworker, and can’t possibly come up with a reason why Arri would want to beat the shit out of a forty-something year old man that has a wife and two kids. Well, he can, but he almost doesn’t want to think about it because then, he might just finish the job off for her.

The men holding his coworker up look like they’re sobering up more by the second and Daniel makes an executive decision, “Get in the car,” he says, clipped and short to his sister and her friends. He waits to see if any of the men protest as they cram themselves into his car and when they don’t, he ducks into his car as well.

A tense, uncomfortable silence fills the car as Daniel grips the steering wheel, knuckles whitening but doesn’t pull away from the curb.

“Explain.”

“He was being a racist piece of shit,” Arri says in her patented weird balance of contriteness and belligerence, “I know—fighting is wrong, blah blah blah, but I couldn’t just let him get away with that shit.”

Daniel lets out a prolonged groan and thumps the back of his head against the headrest a few times, “Arri, we _talked_ about this—you can’t just solve shit with your fists! I thought you fucking learned your lesson and grew out of that shit in highschool. And that was my _coworker_!”

“I know,” Arri snaps, crossing her arms, “And I have! This is the first fight like this I’ve gotten into since freshman year, ok?”

Daniel looks over at her, helplessly, “Then _why_?”

Arri for a very, _very_ long minute looks like she’s going to tell him to stick his head up his ass and go fuck himself, when she finally mutters, “He was making fun of your accent.”

“So?” Daniel half wails, throwing up his hands, “Who cares? So he made fun of my stupid accent once—what does it matter?”

“But it _wasn’t_ once!” Arri says, voice rising to match his, “And you’re my 오빠—his old, wrinkled, tax accountant looking ballsack ass had no right making fun of you like that!”

Daniel sighs and lowers his hands back onto the steering wheel, turning the ignition and slowly pulling out from the curb, “You still shouldn’t have done anything,” he says quietly.

He sometimes forgets that she didn’t share this specific corner of life experience with him, mostly because she bit and punched any bully that tried to mock her, but also because for all intents and purposes, she had no distinguishable accent to mock. Their ESL teacher had ironed it out of her pretty early on and school had only helped, but he’d been in highschool by the time he’d gotten ESL tutoring and while he tore through everything else like wildfire, she could never quite fix his accent. It had gotten better over the years but it was still distinct in its own right, and some people could be brutal.

“I didn’t even hurt him that bad,” Arri mutters, expression set in something she adamantly denied was a pout, but looked very pout-like from where he was sitting.

“His face looked like a pig on a meat-hook, Arri,” Daniel says and she slumps further in her seat, head barely clearing the dashboard.

“How do you even know him anyways?”

“Do you remember that company holiday party thing you dragged me to cause no one else would go with you and you didn’t want to spend the whole night talking to old white guys?”

Daniel barks out a short laugh and Arri brightens slightly at that, “Yeah?”

“Yeah. He was saying shit then too, and everyone was treating it like normal and _laughing_ , and I wanted to choke him the fuck out then and there.”

“You couldn’t exercise that self control then today?”

“I didn’t want to make you look bad,” Arri confesses, “It wouldn’t be great for you if I ruined the party and you got known for having a rabid animal for a sister.”

“You’re hardly rabid,” Daniel sighs.

“No, I am, and I like it,” Arri says, “I beat the shit out of that guy.”

“Yeah, you really did,” Daniel says, and a lull falls between them as he drives. He doesn’t need to glance in the rearview mirror to know that her friends in the back are awkwardly listening in on their conversation with how they’re shifting and nudging each other, and he sees Arri deflate and turn her head to look out the window as the quiet stretches.

Honestly, he’s having trouble trying not to feel proud of her decision.

“Wendy’s or Five Guys?” He asks, hearing Arri’s neck crack as she turns her head towards him.

“What?”

“Pick one,” he says easily, “I drove out before I could order anything for dinner so I’ll treat you and your friends before I drop you off.”

Arri beams at him, wriggling in her seat to sit upright, “Five Guys,” she says, “I want their fries.”

Two days later, his coworker comes into work, one eye still half swollen shut and black and blue littering his face and he tells everyone that he got into a minor car accident and gets shocked and sympathetic noises from everyone around him. Daniel has to hide his grin behind his hand because he’s the only one that knows that he got bested by a hundred pound five foot nothing of rabid Asian wolverine.


	7. 29:20

“오빠.”

Arri’s voice is different over the phone and it makes Daniel’s spine immediately straighten to attention, teeth on edge.

“Where are you?” She asks, and sounds more like herself this time, but it doesn’t make Daniel relax any.

He’d been trying to call her for the past hour but none of his calls had been getting through until she finally called him back. How she managed it, he doesn’t know, but he’s too grateful to question it.

“I’m stuck at the airport,” Daniel says, glaring at the board like he can change the “DELAYED” sign to an actual boarding time.

“Good,” She says viciously, making Daniel blink, “How long for?”

“Until further notice,” Daniel mutters.

“Fan- _fucking_ -tastic,” Arri says, “It’s a fucking mess up here.”

“Oh, I know,” Daniel says, “There’s a guy here that’s been playing the news on his phone since the first alert.”

“Fuck me,” he hears her mutter and there’s a bang that sounds like someone set off a firecracker right by the receiver, then an annoyed, “I’m fine,” comes across.

“Are you?” Daniel asks, concern ratcheting up to an exponential place he hadn’t even realized existed, “Where are _you_ right now?”

“I’m safe,” Arri assures him, but it doesn’t make the boulder that dropped into his chest move any, “We’re all at Kingsley’s house—about as far from everything as we can get.”

“Why is it so loud if you’re inside?”

“We’ve got the news on on blast,” Arri says flippantly, “Ok, I just wanted to know where you were—I’m gonna go do something stupid now. Bye 오빠! 사랑해.”

“Huh?” Daniel says, “사랑해?”

There’s a beep and when Daniel pulls his phone away from his ear, she’s already hung up.

“What the fuck?” He says to himself, earning an affronted glare from the woman sitting across from him, but he can barely care. He doesn’t think he and his sister have ever actually _said_ ‘I love you’ to each other. Sure, they say it as natural as breathing to their mom and say it on birthdays and holidays to their dad, but never to each other. It leaves him feeling off-kilter and all he wants is to be in the air and on his way home already.


	8. 29:20

It takes three connecting flights before he’s finally able to get home in a cab that took him an hour to hail and another two to limp through traffic. The entire time, he’s trying to call Arri but either her phone’s dead or the lines are still down because it always goes straight to voicemail after a single ring. He tries not to think about it as he lugs his luggage up the stairs to his apartment.

He doesn’t bother unpacking—he gets his suitcase about as far as the front hallway and leaves it there in favor of sinking into his sofa with a theatrical groan. Sleeping on a plane doesn’t feel like sleeping at all and all he wants is to shower, lie face-down in bed and pass out until he gets the all clear to drag himself to work again. But he can’t bring himself to fall asleep until he at least _hears_ that Arri’s alright, even if it’s to yell at him for blowing up her phone with a billion calls.

There’s a knock on the door and he nearly trips over himself to answer it, because there’s really only one person that’ll come all the way to his door after a disaster like that, and maybe if he bribes her with takeout, he can get her to stay, at least until everything blows over.

“Sasha,” he says, blinking, “Kingsley,” he looks around them to see if Arri’s somewhere behind their collective mass. He comes up empty.

“What are you doing here?” He asks, sounding a lot harsher than he means to, “Where’s—”

Kingsley’s eyes are red and Sasha’s face crumples, and it’s at that moment where something vital feels like it’s been cut loose and his grip goes white-knuckled around the doorknob.

Sasha opens her mouth and takes a deep breath, but Daniel steps away from the doorway and says, “No, come in guys, come on,” he says with a hollow laugh, trying to delay the inevitable, “Sit down—do you want anything to drink?”

“No, we need to,” her breath is shaky as she sits down, “We need to talk.”

“Ok,” Daniel says and takes his time to pour three glasses of water anyways. He brings them over and sets them on the coffee table before sitting down, gesturing for Sasha to continue.

“We’re so sorry, Daniel,” Sasha says, “She was um—the incident. She was in the middle of it, actually. Um—she…”

“Yeah,” Daniel says, “Alright,” he pinches the bridge of his nose and presses his fingers against his eyes, “Jason?”

“He was with her,” Kingsley says, every word like a weight falling out of his mouth, “So.”

“So,” Daniel says with a nod. He feels about two percent to the left of his body and there’s a buzzing behind his eyelids that doesn’t want to go away, “Do you know how—”

“She saved everyone,” Kingsley says, “And it was our fault. I’m so sorry.”

“Your fault?” Daniel laughs, “Did _you_ summon the hundred foot slime horror from a crack in reality?” He knows he sounds a bit hysterical, but he can’t stop it.

“Well—”

“Then it’s not your fault,” Daniel says, “Either of you. Don’t beat yourselves up about it.”

A silence lapses over the room and Kingsley takes one of the glasses to gulp half of it down.

“Look, guys,” Daniel starts, startling Sasha, “I’m sorry, but I need to ask you to leave—I need to call our parents and well…”

“Yeah, of course,” Sasha says, standing up, “We’re so sorry.”

Daniel nods and sees them out in a haze, and heads back to the sofa much the same and sits down heavily in it. He gives himself a second to bend over, a guttural, choked sound leaving his mouth before he straightens and sucks in a shaky breath.

He doesn’t want to pick up the phone. It’s the last thing he wants to do, but what else _can_ he do? Staring at the floor or the ceiling or locking himself away in his room won’t change anything, no matter how much he wants it to. Freezing isn’t going to make the world outside stop spinning along.

So he does what’s right and woodenly dials his dad’s number and listens to the dial ring and ring before it connects and his dad’s voice comes over the phone.

“When’s the next flight you and mom can get back?”


End file.
